Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Relying on Plato, Theaetetus 176a-b late Platonists saw the
assimilation to god (homoiôsistheôi) as
the goal (telos) of philosophy. Proclus was faithful to this
ideal, as is attested by his biographer Marinus (Life of
Proclus § 25). There was a fundamental discussion in late
Neoplatonism on how this assimilation to the divine was
possible for humans. Damascius (InPhaed. I § 172
Westerink) distinguishes two tendencies: Plotinus and Porphyry
preferred philosophy, which makes us understand the divine principles
of reality through rational explication, while others like Iamblichus
and his followers, Syrianus, and Proclus, gave priority to hieratic
practice or theurgy (theourgia, hieratikê [sc.
technê]). Their different evaluation of respectively
theory and theurgy as means of salvation may be explained by their
different views on the human soul and its possibilities of ascent to
the divine realm. While Plotinus and Porphyry claimed that the
superior part of the human soul always remains within the intelligible
realm, in touch with the divine principles, and never completely
descends into the body, Iamblichus, followed by Proclus, criticised
such a view. The soul does indeed wholly descend into the body (Steel
1976, 34–51). Hence the importance of theurgic rites established
by the gods themselves, to make it possible for the human soul to
overcome the distance between the mortal and the divine, which cannot
be done through increasing philosophical
understanding. In Theol. Plat. I 25, Proclus
expresses his great admiration for the power of theurgy, which
surpasses all human knowledge.
Allegedly, Neoplatonic theurgy originated with Julian the theurgist,
who lived in the time of emperor Marcus Aurelius. At first sight,
theurgy seems to share many characteristics with magic (theory of
cosmic sympathy, invocations, animation of statues of gods and demons),
but it is, as far as we can judge from the extant sources, clearly
different from it. In his DeMysteriis Iamblichus
developed a theology of the hieratic rituals from Platonic principles,
which clearly sets them apart from the vulgar magical practices. While
magic assumes that the gods can be rendered subservient to the
magicians, Platonic philosophers consider this impossible. According to
Plato's principles of theology (Republic II and
Laws X), the gods are immutable, unchangeable, and cannot be
bribed by means of sacrifices. Proclus' views on theurgy (of which
only some fragments belonging to his treatise On Hieratic Art
[i.e., theurgy] survived) are fully in line with these fundamental
Platonic axioms. But how, then, does theurgy work? The theurgists take
up an old belief, shared also by many philosophers, namely the natural
and cosmic ‘sympathy’ (sumpatheia) pervading all
reality. As with an organism, all parts of reality are somehow linked
together as one. Another way of expressing this idea is in the
Neoplatonic principle, going back at least to Iamblichus, that
everything is in everything (pantaenpasin). According to Proclus, all reality,
including its most inferior level, matter, is directed upwards towards
the origin from which it proceeds. To say it in the words of Theodorus
of Asine, whom Proclus quotes in his Commentary on the Timaeus
(I 213.2–3): “All things pray except the First.”
As stated before (cf. 3.3), the human soul contains the principles
(logoi) of all reality within itself. The soul carries,
however, also sumbola or sunthêmata which
correspond to the divine principles of reality. The same symbols also
establish the secret correspondences between sensible things (stones,
plants, and animals) and celestial and divine realities. Thanks to
these symbols, things on different levels (stones, plants, animals,
souls) are linked in a ‘chain’ (seira) to the divine principle on
which they depend, as the chain of the sun and the many solar beings,
or the chain of the moon. Of great importance in the rituals was also
the evocation of the secret divine names. In his Commentary on the
Cratylus, Proclus compares divine names to statues of the gods
used in theurgy (InCrat. § 46), pointing to
the fact that also language is an important means in the ascent to the
divine.
Proclus evokes the Platonic background of his theurgical beliefs,
namely his theory of love (erôs) as expressed in
the Symposium and the Phaedrus, in his
treatise On Hieratic Art:

Just as lovers move on from the beauty perceived by the
senses until they reach the sole cause of all beautiful and
intelligible beings, so too, the theurgists (hieratikoi),
starting with the sympathy connecting visible things both to one
another and to the invisible powers, and having understood that all
things are to be found in all things, established the hieratic
science. (trans. Ronan, modified)

In the wake of an article of Anne Sheppard (1982), scholars usually
distinguish between three kinds of theurgy in Proclus. The first kind,
as described in the above quoted treatise On Hieratic Art, was
mainly concerned with animating statues (in order to obtain oracles or
to evoke divine apparitions) or, in general, with activities related to
physical phenomena or human affairs (influencing the weather, healing
illnesses etc.) (see Life of Proclus § 28–29). As emerges
from our sources, it is this kind of theurgy that involved much
ritualistic practice, including hymns and prayers. The second kind of
theurgy makes the soul capable of ascending up to the level of the
hypercosmic gods and the divine intellect. This second kind too
operates by means of prayers and invocations and it seems especially
characteristic of Proclus' Hymns. And finally, the third
kind of theurgy establishes unity with the first principles, that is
the One itself. This third kind corresponds to the level of the highest
virtues (i.e., ‘theurgic virtues’) in the scale of virtues.
It is not clear whether some form of ritual is involved here at all.
For this last stage of the Platonic homoiôsistheôi the following elements are of major importance:
negative theology (culminating in the negation of the negation), mystic
silence and the intriguing notion of faith (pistis), which
thus enters with a non-Platonic meaning - though even for the latter
notion Proclus will search for confirmation in the Platonic
dialogues.

Those who hasten to be conjoined with the Good, do no longer
need knowledge and activity, but need to be established and a stable
state and quietness. What then is it which unites us to the Good? What
is it which causes in us a cessation of activity and motion? What is it
which establishes all divine natures in the first and ineffable unity
of goodness? […] It is, in short, the faith (pistis) of
the Gods, which ineffably unites all the classes of Gods, of daemons,
and of blessed souls to the Good. For we should investigate the Good
not through knowledge (gnôstikôs) and in an
imperfect manner, but giving ourselves up to the divine light, and
closingtheeyes, to become thus established
in the unknown and occult unity of beings. For such a kind of faith is
more venerable than cognitive activity, not in us only, but with the
Gods themselves. (Proclus, PlatonicTheology,
I 25, trans. Th. Taylor, modified).